


You and I will always be back then

by Moonless_Sky



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/F, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Romance, but only in the beginning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-07-11 17:37:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15977189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonless_Sky/pseuds/Moonless_Sky
Summary: The Ice King falls back into old habits and Marceline tries to pick up the pieces, searching for her lost Princess along the way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I know someone else already posted a fic that this bears a strong resemblance to. I just want to say that i did not, nor do i intend to copy any other person's story. I've had this idea in my head for a while now and i want to do my own thing with it. That being said, i hope you enjoy!

_It’s so FUCKING COLD!_

The Ice Kingdom had always been cold. Even when it had expanded to cover almost half of what _had_ been Ooo in the past, it might have gotten even colder.

As an undead vampire, you wouldn’t expect Marceline Abadeer to feel cold. And she wouldn’t normally, but of course the Ice Kingdom was literally the coldest. Goddamn. Place.

Plus Marceline thought she looked cool, all decked out in a long coat with a fancy exploring pack.

But she really did feel the cold very acutely at the present moment, for really only one reason.

The duck.

The GIANT duck.

The fucking duck the size of a house that she had ridden into the snow. It was made of stone and leeched away what little heat her body had. Marceline didn’t remember what part of her thought it was a good idea to ride the duck. It didn’t even _listen_ to her. It just waddled along through the snow.

She was ninety-percent sure she had been going in circles for the last few hours. Yup, same rocky outcropping, same pile of snow, same mountain shaped like a screaming face.

Marceline reached a hand back and produced a telescope ( _a telescope with her initials engraved on it, mind you…for some reason_ ). She extended it to its full length and looked through it, trying to find something, _ANYTHING_ , different and the mountain just fell.

Marceline pulled the telescope away from her eye to see the damage. The screaming face now ended halfway through the mouth, the rest of it lost to the fog below.

Marceline couldn’t help herself, and she released an audible “fuck!” at the sight.

_Like honestly what even does that to a mountain._

In any event, it had finally jolted the duck into action. It made no sound but waddled as fast as its stubby legs could take it away from the ruins of the mountain. Eventually it squeezed through a crevice that led into a large cave and it finally stopped to sit down and rest.

Marceline figured she should probably do the same, so she hopped off the duck’s flat back and went to the wall of the cave. She let her weight rest on the wall and slid down until she hit the floor, relaxing for a moment before pulling her pack off of her back and rummaging through it.

With a triumphant “aha!” she pulled some matches and what looked like a large lump of charcoal out of the depths of the pack. The charcoal didn’t look like much but the…the person she had gotten it from had said that it could burn for a month straight. Of course Marceline hadn’t believed them but it did burn when she lit it, because what burns for a _month_ straight.

But it burnt. And kept burning. And burnt pretty high too. And she didn’t pay the person who gave it to her, so it was pretty much a win-win.

Except she was still in the middle of an icy, snowy wasteland. So it wasn’t a win-win, more of just a lose.

Marceline glanced at the duck and gazed into its soulless, empty eyes. It looked content, if anything, to be doing nothing, so Marceline figured she’d be doing nothing for a while.

_Time to strip._

_Hehe, not really, but this cave is starting to get stuffy so…_

Marceline let her pack slough off her back and took off the heavy coat she was wearing. Next came the hat and heavy-duty goggles she wore, along with the bandanna tied around the lower half of her face. All this left her in the dark grey tank top she seemed to always be wearing, a pair of heavy pants, and red boots.

Because no outfit is complete without red shoes, because red is the BEST.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this point, if Marceline was a human, she would take time to find and cook herself a meal, but as it was she only needed to dig through her pack for something red.

And lucky for her, she had brought so much red along with her.

Marceline upended the contents of her pack on to the cave floor and rummaged through it all, finding two bruised but red apples. Perfect.

Or, you know, alright…good enough maybe.

Marceline drained the red from both of them and threw the husks aside and set her mind to the only task that had kept her sane on her the isolated wasteland of a kingdom she was in: sorting her pack.

A fuckton of rope?

Check.

A grappling hook because who wouldn’t want a grappling hook?

Check.

Those weird spike-things you put on shoes to climb ice?

Motherfucking check man.

Some ice-climbing axes?

Check.

 

Marceline picked up the last item and froze like she always did. A small, clear jar, with what looked like a small blob of pink inside. You wouldn’t think something so innocuous could cause such a strong reaction, right?

The tears beginning to run down Marceline’s face said otherwise.

She unscrewed the lid of the jar and brought it up to her face, taking a hearty inhale through her nose. It had dulled a little but it still smelled like her.

_Like bubblegum._

_Like Bonnie._

_Like home._

Marceline resealed the jar and let it fall to her lap, crying for real now. Broken, uneven sobs that felt like they were being ripped out of her.

_I’m so sorry Bonnie, it’s all my fault._

_It should’ve been me._

_It should. Have been. **ME.**_

In the back of her mind Marceline knew this wasn’t true. It wasn’t her fault that the Ice King (Ice _Thing_? whatever.) fell back into his old habit of stealing princesses.

Wasn’t her fault that the crown had recognized Princess Bubblegum first.

It didn’t stop her from feeling like it was all her fault.

But all of the snow and ice and crazy flying beard demons in the world couldn’t stop her from rescuing the Princess.

Rescuing her girlfriend.

It wasn’t her mess to clean up but she would clean it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one is from Princess Bubblegum's perspective and it's a pretty dramatic tone shift. Just a fair warning, there are some depressed, bordering on suicidal thoughts so be wary.  
> Also I talk about the Prize Ball Guardians so if you don't know what that is search it up because they're important to what i want to do with the plot later on. Additionally, the stuff i say about the prize ball guardians is based pretty heavily around conjecture from "Come Along With Me" but i guess this entire story is conjecture so i'm gonna do what i want with it.  
> Also also this chapter takes place over the course of three days.  
> This note dragged on for way too long, so i hope you enjoy!

Bonnibel Bubblegum was cold.

Normally she’d refer to herself as “princess” even inside her own head, but there was no point. She had lost track of how long she’d been inside the tiny-ass jail cell made of ice that she was in now, but she figured it had been a while. Bubblegum, of course, heard nothing outside of her cell, but she figured all of the Prize Ball Guardians were active at this point. So barring any strange circumstances…

_Like some **idiots** trying to kill one of the guardians._

Bonnie would be able to revive her kingdom when she escaped

_If I escape…_

_No! Bad brain! Don’t think morbid thoughts._

But Bonnibel Bubblegum had to face the morbid reality of her situation.

Only one person would still be looking for her. One beautiful, dark-haired, vampiric person.

Bonnie smiled at the thought of Marceline searching for her, as unrealistic as it was. Bonnie was a scientist, and she knew the chances of her girlfriend still actively looking for her were slim to none.

_Ex-girlfriend most likely._

_She probably thinks you’re dead._

_And you haven’t even tried to escape in months._

Bonnie _had_ tried…at first. And she learned a few things from the attempts she made.

  1. She’s in some sort of weird ice prison and there is an absolute _fuckton_ of empty cells.
  2. Don’t draw the flying beard demon’s attention
  3. Don’t try to punch through the ice because it’s really thick and Bonnie thinks she broke her hand the first time



 

So no, she hadn’t tried to escape in a while. Occasionally she would grab the bars on the tiny-ass window and pull, to no avail of course.

She had also stopped doing too, so she could conserve what little energy she had left. Normally she would just rest and get it back, but something about the cold sapped away whatever she had.

Sometimes Bonnie would get food. Strange meat that she didn’t want to know the origin of, stale bread _almost_ as hard as the ice, and fruit. Sometimes the fruit would be ripe. Sometimes the mystery meat would be cooked right. Sometimes a thin blanket would get brought with it.

Very rarely.

 They always brought it when she was asleep, so she didn’t know if it was some sort of ice creature or the Ice King in all his beardy glory.

Not that it mattered. Even if Bonnie tried she knew she wouldn’t be able to overpower anyone, malnourished and exhausted as she was.

To summarize, Bonnie’s life had turned into an absolute, utter pile of shit. Shit here, shit there. Today and tomorrow, always shit.

Bonnie wanted desperately to believe that someone was still looking for her. Wanted it very desperately, because it made the morbid reality that the ice was probably going to kill her slightly more bearable.

Bonnie sighed and took one of the blankets wrapped around her, balling it up and placing it on the floor. She sighed again and laid her head down. Some tears slipped out of her eyes and made it almost down her face before they froze.

Bonnie let out a strangled sob that bounced sharply off the walls of her cell.

Maybe her dreams would be better.

 

 

 

Waking up was always the worst part.

After more than five years (Bonnie had stopped counting, it just made it worse) waking up was still the worst part her day. The nights she did manage to fall asleep she always hoped that when she woke up it would all have been just one long nightmare, and that she could wake up in a soft, warm bed, next to her soft, kind of warm girlfriend.

She never did.

Sometimes Bonnie hoped that instead of it being a dream, she would just never wake up.

That was only on really bad days.

A lot of the days were bad at this point.

Some interesting things happen. Sometimes the Ice King will fly close enough that she hears his demented cackle. Once every few months a mountain or an ice shelf will crumble and fall into the abyss outside of her cell’s window.

Today had started out alright, strangely enough.

Food had been brought while Bonnie was asleep, and it wasn’t terrible. The bread was almost edible, and the meat was actually cooked all the way through.

The fruit was still shit.

But Bonnie felt almost halfway decent.

She still looked like crap. Her clothes were ragged and her skin was almost white and her stomach dipped visibly inwards and her hair sometimes broke off when she touched it because it’s made of _gum_.

But she felt decent.

 

 

 

This was the last day.

Bonnie couldn’t go on any longer.

She just couldn’t.

No one was coming for her. Another mountain had crumbled close to her cell and Bonnie could’ve sworn she heard the sound of a person but she didn’t hear anything else, so she figured she had just imagined it.

Bonnie figured she was just going crazy.

Whatever.

Just one more thing going wrong on an already shitty day.

Bonnie lamented from her place curled up in one corner of her cell, that she wouldn’t be able to do certain things before she dies.

Like see her people again.

Or bring her kingdom back to life.

Or see what new things had happened in Ooo…maybe see the world.

And she would never see her girlfriend again.

That was really the worst. It just… _really_ sucked.

Bonnie remembered vividly when they had first kissed. She had almost been flattened, and Marceline had turned into a cloud monster. It had been wonderful.

And then they had saved the world with a song.

Wonderful.

A good last memory to envision.

Bonnie opened her mouth to sing.

“ _Time is an illusion that helps things make sense_

_So we’re always living in the present tense_

_It seems unforgiving when a good thing ends_

_But you and I will always be back then…_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus Christ this one was really heavy. But it's going to get better within the next chapter or two, so keep reading because i plan to keep writing. Also, waking up to a bunch of comments and kudos the day after i posted chapter 1 was one of the best feelings I've experienced.  
> Also, if you like this idea and want to read more of it, check out this https://archiveofourown.org/works/15969698/chapters/37248761 by Saltier_Than_Pearl. It's about the same idea as this, but they posted it first and were nice enough to leave a comment and kudos on my story and they write very well.  
> Have a good day!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god i'm so sorry for how dark and sad the last chapter got. I meant for it to be darker than chapter 1, but i was dealing with some stuff when i wrote it and i let it get away from me.  
> Good news: I don't think i have something that dark in me to write again. This chapter is so much happier and lighter and i know i'm sorta spoiling it by saying that but whatever, you knew it was gonna happen. Anyway, this chapter is a bit longer and i wrote it really quickly because i wanted to follow up chapter 2 as fast as i could. There are probably some errors, so point them out if you see them, but otherwise...  
> Enjoy!
> 
> just an FYI, this chapter takes place within minutes of the end of the last chapter

Marceline was about five seconds away from murdering the duck.

You might now be asking yourself: how does one kill a giant stone duck?

Marceline would find a way.

And why, you ask, does Marceline want to murder the duck in cold blood?

Because it’s the worst decision she’s ever made. She could’ve found a horse or some other ride-able animal, or _walked_ for Glob’s sake. But no. She had to take the duck. And Marceline is very surprised that they haven’t gone over a cliff together. The duck has no sense of self preservation (it had almost walked them into an avalanche), and it didn’t listen to anything she told it.

Marceline says go a direction, and it might maybe go that direction. Or the opposite direction. Or backwards.

Marceline now knew definitively that the duck was taking her in circles. She had seen the same fallen mountain more times than she could count.

_There it is again…and again._

Marceline had done a little bit of deeper exploring in the small area the duck seemed confined to. She hadn’t found much, but she did find a sword driven up to the hilt in a chunk of ice that was currently sandwiched between her back and her pack. It was a cool sword too. Simple hilt, red blade. The perfect stand-in for her axe-bass.

It’ll be great to kill the duck with.

Marceline wishes Bonnie was here to laugh at her jokes.

Scratch that, she just wishes Bonnie was _here_.

Marceline almost brings a hand up to wipe the tears she knows are about to stream down her face before she remembers the goggles.

She chuckles hollowly and goes back to looking around at everything, trying to find something new. Then the duck stops suddenly.

They’re right next to a large chasm; a gaping abyss that Marceline can’t see the bottom.

_I really hope the duck didn’t decide to finally walk us off a ledge._

They duck turns its head towards her and utters a single, sonorous “quack” before angling its head at the ground.

“Do you want me to get off?” Marceline asks the duck. Her voice is muffled by the scarf, but she’s sure it doesn’t matter. So she hops off the back of the duck. It just stands there and doesn’t move.

The snow crunches under her feet as Marceline walks to the edge of the chasm. The wind around her is mostly calm, with an occasional gust that threatens to sweep her into the abyss. It’s filled with fog, and she still can’t see the bottom. But just above the line the fog creates is…something.

_Good for nothing vampire eyes._

Even with vampire eyes, Marceline can’t see it clearly. But it’s not natural.

Marceline grabs her monogrammed telescope and fumbles, almost dropping it into the chasm below.

But she doesn’t.

She extends it too its full length and peers through it. Sure enough, it isn’t natural. Not by a long shot.

It’s a thing. The first real thing Marceline has seen in almost five years. It’s a small window with bars on it. And Marceline wants to investigate.

_How the fuck am I gonna get over there? The grappling hook might work if I had like another five hundred feet of ro-_

Marceline trails off mid thought. Because she’s stupid.

She can fucking _fly_.

_I’m so stupid._

Marceline shakes her head at herself as she steps off the edge of the cliff.

She soars over the fog, feeling pangs of exhilaration that haven’t gotten old yet.

The window comes into view, and Marceline feels a surge of triumph because it is _actually_ a window and not a hallucination. As she nears it, she hears…singing. She pulls her hood and scarf down and shifts her goggles up to her fore head to listen.

“ _Will happen, happening, happened_

_Will happen, happening, happened_

_And,_

_There we are, again and again,_

_Cause you and I will always be back then._ ”

The voice dissolves into a coughing fit after that and Marceline freezes because she _knows_ that voice, knows that cough.

She would know it anywhere.

Always.

Marceline presses her face up against the bars and peers into the cell. It’s mostly empty, aside from a amorphous blob huddled in one corner of the room. Marceline is disappointed until she sees the blob’s _pink hair_.

_PINK HAIR._

Marceline can’t help herself. She grips the bars of ice and pulls and the entire wall comes with.

But she can’t focus on that because it’s _her_.

It’s Bubblegum.

_Bonnie…_

Marceline all but sprints over to the huddled mass of blankets and rags, slamming down on her knees and sliding the last foot or two.

She pulls the blanket away from Bonnie’s face and grimaces.

It’s…it’s not good.

Her eyes are ringed by dark circles and she looks practically starved, her cheekbones standing out in sharp relief. Her skin is almost white, and her hair looks a good deal shorter than it was.

Bonnie’s eyes are closed, and the breaths she takes are shallow. Marceline, as gently as she can, cups Bonnie’s face with both hands and turns her face.

“Bonnie.” Marceline says softly, tears running freely down her face. “I’m here…I finally found you.”

_Please wake up please wake up please wake up._

Slowly, ever so slowly, _glacially_ slowly, Bonnie’s eyes flutter open. They flit around wildly for a moment before settling on Marceline.

Marceline nearly sobs in relief.

Bonnie opens her mouth, and Marceline prepares herself for something sad or happy. But what Bonnie says catches her completely off guard.

“You cut your hair.”

Marceline laughs, but it sounds like she’s crying, which she is.

“Yeah.”

Marceline reaches a hand up to scratch at her undercut. Short hair probably wasn’t the best choice for the Ice Kingdom, but she looked damn good.

Marceline turned her attention back to Bonnie. “I’m gonna pick you up now. Is that OK?”

Bonnie doesn’t look at Marceline, or give any indication that she heard her, but after a while she nods almost imperceptibly.

Marceline gathers the mass of blankets and body parts that is her girlfriend in her arms, stepping through the gaping hole and jetting across the chasm.

The duck is still there for some inexplicable reason, and Marceline lands on it.

It starts moving with as much determination as a duck can muster when she lands on it.

It’s taking a different path this time, one Marceline doesn’t recognize.

Then again, she doesn’t recognize lots of things because the duck likes to go in circles.

But whatever.

Marceline just hopes it’s taking them out of the Ice Kingdom.

She feels Bonnie shiver slightly, so Marceline wraps her coat around the both of them. Bonnie’s head falls against her shoulder and Marceline lets herself smile.

Marceline _really_ hopes the duck is taking them out.

 

 

 

 

The duck did do smart things after all.

For the first time in almost a year, Marceline can see the sky.

And grass.

And _trees_.

It’s still a few miles away so Marceline can’t actually feel or touch any of it. Plus she’ll have to keep most of her heavy clothes on until the sun sets because she’s a vampire and the sun will burn her. But it’s still there.

When they finally cross the line between Ice Kingdom and the rest of Ooo, Marceline gently shakes Bonnie awake.

Bonnie jolts awake and thrashes for a moment before releasing a pained gasp and relaxing.

And then she looks up at the sky, and the tired smile that settles on her face is Marceline’s new favorite thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww...wasn't that nice?  
> I couldn't stand to write something sad again so i think this is good.  
> On the subject of Princess Bubblegum: she and Marcy escaped, but PB has gone through some traumatic shit so that's gonna have to be dealt with eventually. But i'm gonna write nice things for a while.
> 
> EDIT: This is not the end of this story. Yeah, they're together again, but writing this is downright cathartic and its really fun and rewarding. So i'm not even close to done with this.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't as long or as good as i wanted it to be. But its okay. It gets a little dark, and i'm sorry because i know i said i was gonna try to write happy, but i think the chapter has a good balance of humor and darkness.  
> This note is not as long as my usual notes because i'm posting this late at night and i think i'm getting sick so that is very fun.  
> But anyway...Enjoy!

Marceline misses her jacket.

It’s balled up in her pack, and it’s super fucking hot out, so she can’t really wear a jacket designed for sub-zero temperatures. But she misses it.

There aren’t really any sentimental memories attached to it, but five years of wearing it has made it kind of like a security blanket.

But in other news, Marceline has finally done what she worked towards for five years; she found her girlfriend in the middle of the Ice Kingdom, rescued her, and made it out without being assaulted by a goddamn flying beard.

Marceline is very proud of herself.

But Marceline is also very worried.

It’s been almost a day and a half since they left the Ice Kingdom, and all Bonnie has done is sleep. And not very peacefully.

Marceline thinks Bonnie is having pretty much a nonstop nightmare. She’ll gasp or whimper, or she’ll just start screaming. A lot of the time she’ll just cry silently. Or loudly.

Marceline tried to wake her up once and failed miserably.

Anyone who could help is either dead, a kingdom away, or in another dimension.

Marceline has Bonnie now but she’s never felt more alone.

And the duck doesn’t count because Marceline isn’t sure it even knows what’s happening around it. Marceline would’ve left the duck for her own house but they passed it a few hours ago and some weird people were squatting in it, and Marceline doesn’t want to deal with _that_.

_It doesn’t really matter that much, I have my home right here._

Marceline cringed at the corny thought and glanced down at Bonnie, asleep with her head in Marceline’s lap.

It seemed like Bonnie had finally tired herself out enough that she was sleeping peacefully.

_She looks so peaceful._

Bonnie did look peaceful, barely any of the trauma haunting her visible on her sleeping face. Her skin had regained some color and didn’t feel cold to the touch anymore, and her eyes didn’t look quite as sunken as they had.

But she still wouldn’t wake up.

Marceline didn’t understand why she wouldn’t just _wake up_.

Marceline also wishes that someone else she knew was with her so she could vent because bottling everything up is starting to make her go insane.

She’d love to sleep but between actually having to watch for bandits or some shit, watching over Bonnie like a hawk, and making sure the duck doesn’t swan dive off a cliff Marceline hasn’t slept since before they left the Ice Kingdom.

Marceline hasn’t seen or heard any weird ice creatures or flying, laughing beards so she thinks they’re in the clear. But it seems like they didn’t give Bonnie much attention in the first place so Marceline thinks they probably don’t care. Which just makes her really angry because _who would do this to a person_ and not even care if they got rescued?

_An insane fucking flying beard like honestly how does that even happen._

Marceline lets out a frustrated yell and Bonnie finally stirs. Marceline shuts herself up and looks at Bonnie intently.

Still sleeping.

Dammit.

But then Bonnie does wake up. She jolts awake and oh fuck she’s screaming again.

Marceline rushes to calm her down and she’s asleep again. Before Marceline can even get a word off.

But she isn’t screaming. And Marceline considers that good.

Marceline eats those words that she thought a moment later.

Four bandits stumble out of the forest, and Marceline doesn’t know how she didn’t notice them before. They aren’t dressed in any sort of camouflage. Pretty much the exact opposite.

One of them is decked out in a purple and zebra print suit, with a similarly patterned coat draped over his shoulders.

And now he’s smiling and _oh glob_ all of his teeth are fucking gold or so yellow they’re brown and Marceline wants to violently vomit because it’s so disgusting.

The rest of them are dressed in patchwork clothes and holding very shitty looking weapons. One of them is holding a fencing foil. Marceline doesn’t know what a fencing foil is but she can see that it isn’t sharp.

Another one is straight up duel-wielding butter knives.

And the third one is just wearing boxing gloves.

Marceline doesn’t think her day can get any worse.

As with many things. Marceline is wrong.

Leopard-print suit man steps forward and smiles again and _WOW_ is it unsettling.

“Hand over the pack.” He says, pointing to it with his cane, and somehow Marceline feels like she’s seen this somewhere in a movie before.

“Hand it over,” he says again, “or we’ll _make_ you hand it over.”

His eyes flit towards Bonnie and he grins again and Marceline’s blood boils. “Maybe we’ll take sleeping beauty too.”

And then all Marceline sees is red.

They pressed the Bonnie button.

They shouldn’ta did that.

 

 

 

 

And they’re dead now and _wow_ they had a lot of blood. It’s everywhere. It’s on Marceline. It’s on the duck. It’s even on the fucking trees.

Marceline thinks while she cleans her sword that she probably didn’t have to kill them. But she knew what they had been implying and it’s so fucked up that she honestly would have probably done it even if they hadn’t tried to take her stuff.

The fight didn’t wake Bonnie up. She had slept through the whole thing, and managed not to get a drop of blood on her.

Marceline settles back on the duck next to Bonnie and flops onto her back. And that was a horrible decision because the duck is made of stone and stone is hard.

So it hurts. Marceline sees stars, and she thinks she imagines a small hand grabbing on to her own. But she didn’t imagine it. She looks down and there’s a pink hand wrapped around hers and that pink hand is connected to Bonnie.

No, unfortunately Bonnie isn’t awake. But she reached out for Marceline unconsciously and that gives Marceline a warm fuzzy feeling.

She still isn’t going to get any sleep though.

Because oversleeping and burning when the sun comes up isn’t very high on Marceline’s to-do list. Plus she needs to be awake so she can keep an eye out, especially after their run-in with the leopard-print dude.

But Marceline still feels the warm fuzziness so she squeezes Bonnie’s hand.

And she might be imagining it now, but she feels the slightest squeeze in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone is interested this is my inspiration for the leopard-print suit man's suit: https://www.partycity.com/adult-sugar-daddy-pimp-costume-plus-size-628202.html  
> just imagine that when you read that line and you'll be good...or don't because it's a horrific image.  
> Fun fact: i wore that as a Halloween costume like seven years ago and i still have the hat.


	5. The Ends of The Earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this took me way to long to get out. and im posting this at like 10pm. i'm great at this.  
> I don't know how i feel about this chapter. It's nice and fluffy with a little angst, but it isn't as long as i wanted it to be. Plus my style drifted a little and i cant tell why.  
> But it's alright, and anyways, the plot advances!  
> On a completely unrelated note, my chapters will have titles now. This one comes from a song by Lord Huron. I was listening to it while I wrote so i slipped a very very subtle line in and boom! It's a good song, too.  
> I'm sorry you all had to wait for this for so long, but i hope you enjoy!

So…

Bonnie woke up.

And Marceline can definitively that it’s worse than when she was sleeping.

Bonnie had jolted awake; her head shooting up from it’s from Marceline’s lap and catching her in the face.

And Marceline could’ve dealt with the blood gushing from her nose, but then Bonnie scrambled away, to the opposite end of the duck. She had curled in on herself and stared off into space. Marceline didn’t try to talk to her.

She figured Bonnie would talk when she was ready.

That was almost five days ago.

Marceline is fucking crawling out of her skin. She wants to yell. She wants to scream. She just wants to _talk_. Marceline is pretty sure it would probably hurt to talk after like a week of speaking a grand total of a sentence. But that doesn’t stop her from wanting it.

Marceline just really wants to talk to Bonnie. But that’s pretty much completely off the table because Marceline doesn’t want to force Bonnie to talk to her.

On the plus side, Marceline had gotten a few hours of sleep. She had balled up her coat and laid down, and then she had a thought and spoke a sentence to Bonnie.

_Wake me before the sun comes up._

Bonnie didn’t acknowledge Marceline, or give her any indication that she had heard her.

And then she had promptly fallen asleep.

Marceline didn’t have any nightmares, which was refreshing after a solid five years of shitty dreams and night terrors.

It still sucked, though. Marceline didn’t realize how much she missed having someone warm next to her while she slept.

Thankfully, Bonnie wasn’t completely tuned out. She _had_ heard Marceline. And so she shook Marceline awake an hour before dawn. With no talking of course.

Marceline really just wanted to scream.

 

 

 

They developed a sort of pattern. Marceline would get a few hours of sleep, and Bonnie would wake her up. Bonnie never talked, and she seemed to avoid sleep like it had personally offended her. But Marceline had noticed that every time she woke up, Bonnie had moved an almost imperceptible amount towards Marceline.

It made Marceline smirk internally.

After a few days of this, Marceline woke up to something that made her feel _really shitty_.

Bonnie was facing her, finally, but Marceline’s pack was next to her, open and very obviously rifled through. Bonnie held two items from the pack in her hands.

One was…

_The crown._

And the other thing was the piece of Bonnie’s hair in a jar.

Bonnie turned and looked at Marceline; the first direct interaction they’d had.

Bonnie looked like she was about to talk (finally!) and Marceline levered herself into a sitting position.

Bonnie struggled for a minute.

Opened and closed her mouth a few times.

She kind of looked like she was about to cry.

“You kept these?”

Her voice was rough and scratchy and sounded just painful.

Marceline winced and rubbed the back of her neck.

“I…Yeah. I did.”

And now Marceline is cringing on the inside because how is that _the best_ she could come up with?

Bonnie drops the crown and the jar, which miraculously doesn’t shatter, and covers her mouth with her hands and now she’s crying which makes Marceline feel fucking awful.

“I thought you had forgot me.”

And that single sentence just _kills_ Marceline. And finally makes her act.

She startles both of them by springing forward and wrapping her arms around Bonnie.

Bonnie yelps in surprise and wow she’s really crying now, so Marceline just grips tighter.

_How could I ever forget this?_

Marceline could never forget, even if she tried.

“I could never forget you.”

Bonnie pulls back and dabs at her tear-stained face. When she meets Marceline’s eyes again there’s a mischievous glint in her eyes that Marceline has longed to see for five years. But it disappears pretty quickly.

“I really did, though. I really thought you forgot about me, or moved on, or—“

“I could never.” Marceline grips Bonnie’s shoulders as tight as she dared.

Marceline is honestly a little hurt that Bonnie thinks that Marceline could forget her.

Just a little.

Okay, maybe more than a little. It actually really hurts. Marceline is offended that Bonnie assumed that she would just forget a thousand years of history.

But Marceline forgets all about her wounded ego when Bonnie presses her lips against Marceline’s.

And Marceline’s brain just sort of short-circuits because _WOW_ she forgot how nice it feels to kiss Bonnie.

Because it’s honestly the best thing in the world to Marceline.

 

 

 

 

Marceline thinks Bonnie is a very balancing influence on her.

They had found a second group of bandits (more like the bandits had found them). Marceline had her sword halfway out before Bonnie laid a calming hand over her own.

Marceline gave her a pleading glance. But Bonnie was unyielding.

Which sucked, because Marceline really wanted to take out her frustration on something.

But finally Marceline sighed and turned away, pouting. And then Bonnie reasoned with them like a _normal person_ , the not-fun way.

No fun at all.

When the bandits finally let them go on their way Bonnie turned to Marceline.

They stared at each other for an awkward moment before Bonnie sighed.

“I really hope you don’t try to kill every new person we meet.”

“Technically you stopped me before I could try, princess.”

Bonnie chuckled. The first time Marceline had heard her do so in almost five years. It brings a little bit of joy to Marceline’s dead heart.

Marceline felt Bonnie’s arms encircle her, and she sighed contentedly when Bonnie laid her head on her shoulders.

“I guess I find that a little endearing.”

_Damn right._

Marceline laughed. “I sure hope so. There’s lots of bandits in these forests.”

“How far do the forests go?”

Marceline grinned. “Pretty much to the end of the Earth.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Isn’t that what you’re with me for? I mean, my good looks will only get me so far.”

Bonnie’s laugh reverberated through Marceline, and Marceline grinned again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was nice, right?  
> In the near future, i will try my very best to get updates out in a much more timely fashion.  
> Thanks for reading!


	6. Author's Note

Well...I sure have some stuff to apologize for, don't I?

Let me just simultaneously thank and apologize to everyone who has stuck with this story since the beginning. I know from personal experience that it isn't fun when an author just...stops posting on a story for like a year. So if you're still here, thank you.

I want to apologize again for straight up forgetting this story. In my defense, real life hit me like a fucking bullet train and my life was not fun for a while. This is the only thing I've written on here that has had better than a lukewarm reaction and I should've tried harder to make time for it.

In better news, someone commented on most recent chapter to remind me that this existed after like 4 months so I'm going to start writing it again. The next chapter is like half-written so it should be out pretty soon.

That is, unless the Day-After-Tommorow-level storm of cold sweeping the US doesn't kill me.


	7. Let's Go Do Some Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't say i never gave you anything  
> And not that i dont love writing nice heartfelt dialogue, but it's plot time now  
> and it only took five fucking chapters  
> thanks for reading, hope you enjoy

“So,” Marceline said one night as the duck shambled onwards, “Not that I don’t enjoy… _this_ , whatever this is, but do you want to do something?”

Bonnie looked over at Marceline from her position sprawled across the flat stone and snorted.

“Do something?” She laughed. “What do you think we should do?”

Marceline didn’t answer right away. Instead she just stared unabashedly at Bonnie.

She could see that Bonnie still wasn’t at a hundred percent, but compared to how she looked a week ago Marceline considered this a giant fucking improvement. Her skin had regained some color, settling on a light pink. A scar crossed over the corner of her mouth and it confuses Marceline because she didn’t think gum _could_ scar.

But Marceline isn’t really that torn up about it because scars are hot.

Marceline brings herself back to reality to find Bonnie’s blue eyes locked with hers.

“See something you like?”

“Maybe I do.” Marceline tries to adopt a coy tone. “What’s it to you?”

Bonnie laughs, a sharp bark that echoes through the forest around them and sounds like it’s been surprised out of her. She crawls over to Marceline and puts her head in her lap.

“You know, I keep forgetting how much I missed you, and you do some…little thing that reminds me.”

Marceline is suddenly very interested in looking anywhere but at Bonnie, and she says “I’m sorry” In a voice so soft Bonnie almost can’t hear it.

Bonnie reaches up and shoves Marceline’s shoulder. “Stop it. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know, I just…I know. But part of me is always gonna feel responsible.” Marceline drags a hand down her face. “I’m sorry. We were having such a nice conversation before and I ruined it.”

“I think that distinguished honor goes to me, actually.” Bonnie laughs. A deep belly laugh that is apparently contagious, because now Marceline is laughing too. They’re both laughing like fucking hyenas and it’s echoing through the forest and Marceline should be worried that it’s going to attract more bandits but she honestly couldn’t care less.

Eventually the laughter peters off, until it’s nothing more than the occasional giggle.

“You never answered my question.” Marceline says after a while.

“What question?”

Marceline lets a small smile grace her face. “You know what question.”

Bonnie lets out a thoughtful ‘hmm’, but doesn’t respond immediately.

“I’m not too picky. But…um…I’d like to…I’d like to check on my kingdom at some point in the near future, if that’s alright with you.”

Marceline smiles at the uncertainty in Bonnie’s voice, as if Marceline would ever not be okay with that.

“We’re in luck then. I’m pretty sure the duck has decided to only go to places it remembers, because we’ve been heading towards what I assume is still my house for a few days now.”

“Really? How can you tell? Everything looks the same to me.”

“Ehh, I did wander around in here for a few years before I started to look in the ice kingdom. I kind of started to know my way around.” Marceline smiles. “I hid some things at my house too, before I left, including a log of as many of the prize-ball guardians as I could find.”

Marceline turns to Bonnie. “Why _did_ you make them follow set paths? I never understood that.”

Bonnie shifted and stretched until a _pop_ could be heard. “It was easier, at the time…I think.”

Marceline shrugged. “Whatever. That just makes it easier for us.”

\---

Marceline was…apprehensive at the thought of going back to her house. Of course, she would never use the word apprehensive. If Bonnie were to ask her, she would say that she was “nervous as fuck” about seeing it again.

It had stopped being her home, in the figurative, cutesy sense a long time ago. But it was a remnant of Marceline’s life, and she had no idea what she would find there, which scares her more than it has any right to.

Bonnie is completely oblivious to the storm brewing in Marceline’s head, and she somehow maintains a pretty jovial attitude.

“So how long has it been since you’ve been back here, Marcy?”

Marceline breathes in slowly and sighs. “Five years, give or take. And even then it was just a quick pit stop to drop some shit off.”

“Do you think it’s changed that much?”

Marceline shrugs and lies back on the duck, managing a smile. “I just hope squatters haven’t defiled any of my stuff.”

Bonnie laughs and it’s a ray of sun shining into Marceline’s dark thoughts.

“Did you really just say ‘defiled’?”

“Am I not allowed to use fancy words?”

“No no no,” Bonnie says quickly, “that’s fine. I just didn’t know I was in love with a thesaurus.”

Marceline lays a hand over her chest dramatically. “Madam, I take offense to that.”

Bonnie laughs again. “You’re just making it worse, you know.”

Marceline lets out an unintelligible grumble and sits up. Things are starting to look more familiar, so Marceline looks around.

It’s all craggy and rocky and Marceline has a sudden shocking thought of _what if the cave collapsed_?

She is very quick to dismiss this because the cave mouth comes into view after a minute. It’s dark inside, but Marceline can see a soft glow accompanied by a rhythmic twinkling.

_Squatters then._

_Shit._

Marceline almost wants to turn back, but the duck can’t be stopped now. Or at all. It seems to increase speed until it enters the cave. And Marceline sees her house for the first time in a long time.

And it is…different.

It’s wrapped in several strands of lights, which seem to be the source of the twinkling. But the lights inside are off. There’s some furniture outside the door, but it’s all covered in a thin layer of dust.

Marceline turns to Bonnie and finds her staring at her expectantly.

Marceline smiles. “Ready?”

Bonnie nods, and Marceline grasps the handle on the door firmly. She pulls and a shower of dust cascades down, leaving her and Bonnie spitting and coughing.

“Well.” Marceline says, “At least we know for sure now that no one is here.”

Marceline almost chickens out, but then she feels a soft, warm hand slip into hers and squeeze, and suddenly she feels a little less nervous.

“Ready?” Bonnie asks, and Marceline laughs.

“Ready.”

She takes a deep breath and steps forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i meant to have this out a little earlier but school and FIRST Robotics and writers block apparently didn't so whatever  
> I hope you liked this chapter, and i hope my subtle foreshadowing wasn't too subtle  
> also the title of this chapter is a line from Ten Little Roosters, a comedic murder mystery made by Rooster Teeth  
> give it a watch it's funny  
> thanks for reading

**Author's Note:**

> so i drew inspiration from some YouTube videos so here they are:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cegVOx-SU10&index=469&list=WL&t=0s  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0ZT2L2mDNg&feature=youtu.be  
> I intend to keep writing this, so leave kudos or a comment because i crave validation in the form of numbers, or you know, if you want to.  
> Also leave constructive criticism or critiques if you want to because i make mistakes.  
> Also also this is my first time writing a fandom-oriented work so horray!


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